Chancellor Philip Hammond has emerged as the main cheerleader for a business-friendly Brexit. His reputation for being one of the cabinet ministers in favor of a softer Brexit had made him a candidate for the chopping block when it looked as if May was heading for a landslide with an army of hard-Brexit supporters.

But May’s poor election performance has raised his stature, and he’s been unafraid to spar with Brexit Secretary David Davis, the chief negotiator, or take jabs at Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, one of the faces of the successful “Leave” campaign. In Berlin last week, Hammond joked that he now tried to “discourage talk of ‘cake’ amongst my colleagues.”

The head of the National Audit Office, Sir Amyas Morse has warned in an unprecedented intervention, that Whitehall departments are being left to "struggle on their own" with the challenges of Brexit because of a failure of leadership and direction.

He said the Government could "come apart like a chocolate orange" unless departments are given more support, as he warned Mrs May that Brexit poses the "biggest challenge" since the Second World War.

The brains behind the Vote Leave campaign has branded the Brexit secretary "thick as mince" in a scathing Twitter broadside. Dominic Cummings, the man behind the infamous ‘£350m a week for the NHS’ bus pledge, said David Davis was “as lazy as a toad”. And he said the Brexit secretary was the "perfect stooge" for top civil servants.

Over a series of tweets, Cummings went on to claim that it was “very likely” the PM had not been briefed on the repeal bill, and that neither she nor cabinet ministers understood it.

"The author of Article 50 has called for Brexit to be halted, warning that the “disastrous consequences” of Britain's decision to leave the bloc are becoming "clearer every day".

Lord Kerr of Kinlochard is one of more than 60 prominent figures in Scotland who signed a joint letter saying that Brexit has seriously damaged the UK's international reputation.

The peer, who was Britain’s permanent representative at the EU for five years from 1990, said when he wrote Article 50 – the clause in the EU’s Lisbon Treaty that outlines the steps a country must take to leave the bloc voluntarily – he believed it would only ever be triggered by a dictatorial regime."

So much has happened, it may seem like it was only yesterday that Theresa May began spouting the (meaningless) phrase, "Brexit means Brexit" - but it was actually 54 weeks ago. Right-wing media are reluctant to let go of it, as can be seen from today's attempt to play keepie-uppie.

As a British EU negotiator, I can tell you that Brexit is going to be far worse than anyone could have guessed

From an article by Steve Bullock:-

"For anyone following Brexit developments, the last week should have shown that the level of complexity involved in Brexit is unprecedented. Ministers however seem to have inserted their heads firmly into the sand, hoping tricky problems will just go away.

Who knew a fortnight ago that leaving the apparently obscure Euratom Treaty would jeopardise not only the UK nuclear industry, but also the supply of medical isotopes for cancer treatment? All that matters to the government, apparently, is that Euratom is within the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice, so it has to go. Did anybody realise that the work needed to establish a new customs IT system was unlikely to be done in time, and what that would mean? Was everyone already aware that UK airlines like easyJet would need to set up in the EU27 and Ryanair might move its planes to EU27 countries due to the UK leaving the Open Skies Agreement? Well, some people knew, but they’re just experts, so have been largely ignored.

The UK does not have its own capacity to do things like certify maintenance facilities if it leaves the European Aviation Safety Agency. The UK won’t be able to certify the people that fix the planes. As with so many of these issues, the UK will either have to negotiate to remain in the agency (which is within the dreaded European Court of Justice’s jurisdiction), or establish its own capacity to replace what it does from a standing start in only 20 months. UK NGOs such as Oxfam will not be eligible for EU grants post-Brexit. With only a few small exceptions, only NGOs from EU countries, and the partner countries themselves, can implement EU aid programmes.

There are literally hundreds of such issues where the effects of Brexit will be detrimental to the UK. Brexit would have been a terrible idea even if done as well as possible, but for the government to blithely march the country towards consequences that they don’t even themselves understand is an appalling dereliction of duty."

When the cat's away, the mice will play. The Leader of the Tory Party will address its Annual Conference in October. But who will that actually be? This week Theresa May has been on holiday, but others are pronouncing policy in her absence anyway, suggesting that far from "No Deal being better than a bad one" - negotiations surrounding a Brexit could continue indefinitely.

Both membership of the single market and a customs agreement would require us to accept much EU legislation without being able to help formulate it – including any legislation the EU chooses to enact in future. We would become, in effect, a satellite of the EU, relying on the Commission or other member states to defend our interests. Such an outcome – regulation without representation – proved unacceptable to Americans in the 18th century. It would probably prove equally unacceptable to the British people in the 21st. There is no logic to a “soft” Brexit – a form of withdrawal that mimics EU membership, but without the influence that comes from membership. The ultimate choice we face is either “hard” Brexit or remain.

Britain will be negotiating, therefore, for a free trade agreement in a “hard” Brexit. If one leaves a tennis club because one does not wish to pay the subscription and does not like the rules yet still wishes to play tennis, one’s leverage is not strong. In addition, a trade agreement would probably have to be ratified unanimously by the European Council, by a majority in the European Parliament, and 27 national and 11 regional parliaments – and we are up against a two-year time limit. There is, apparently, a Japanese saying to the effect that the shorter the time limit, the deeper your wallet needs to be.

Some British politicians suffer from an imperial reflex, however. For them, Britain lies at the centre of the world. We only have to state our aims and other countries will be generous enough to help us achieve them. Last year Brexiteers argued that Britain should leave an EU composed of ill-intentioned foreigners whose interests were in conflict with its own. This year it has been magically transformed into a charitable institution that can be relied on to safeguard our interests.

May called an election to strengthen her negotiating hand, but there is probably no Commons majority for her version of Brexit. Indeed, there is probably a stronger representation of remain MPs in Parliament today than before the election. With a deadlocked Parliament, the possibility of an unfavourable deal and both parties divided on Europe, it may start to appear that the only way out of the impasse is a second referendum in which the government’s deal is put it to the people for legitimation.

Former EU official: Conservative Brexit strategy the most harmful government policy for over 50 years

"The decisions taken by the former PM David Cameron, exacerbated by the decisions taken by his successor, are the most harmful decisions that have been taken by a British government for decades" said Sir Michael Leigh, who was a European Commission director-general from 2006 to 2011. "You have to go back to the Suez crisis in 1956 or to Munich in 1938 to find decisions taken by a British government that will turn out in time to have had such negative consequences for the United Kingdom."

He echoed concerns expressed by other former diplomats that May's government is both unprepared and ill-equipped for divorce talks with EU negotiators. One of the big problems hindering progress, Leigh claims, is the difficulty facing the EU in trusting the British government when it is so obviously divided over so many key issues. "Under these conditions, Barnier has got to be concerned that anything Davis says on any given day could be contradicted the next day by another cabinet minister.”

The political parties will be holding Annual Conference in October. Suppose TM then commands, "Back me or sack me!" Will any Tory challenger risk picking up the option and thus precipitating ANOTHER general election? Mr. Corbyn's supporters must fervently hope so - it would be 1997 all over again.

Britain will be subject to the rulings of European courts after Brexit, the government has conceded, in an apparent climbdown from its promise of judicial independence.

In the latest in a series of policy papers that seek to blur the edges of hard Brexit, the government argues that for the smooth settlement of cross-border disputes it is necessary that foreign judgments sometimes apply to individuals and businesses in the UK.

"A United States of Europe" was clearly the intention as far back as General DeGaulle, who hated everybody but particularly the USA to whom he hated being beholden for having rescued his Country from the Nazis. Creating the Euro had the specific purpose of providing an alternative reserve currency.

Britain wants to pick up the pace. EU negotiators in Brussels are taking their time. Blackmail and sabotage, cry Westminster’s Brexiters. The explanation is more prosaic. The more urgent a deal begins to seem for Britain, the higher the incentives stack in favour of a stalling strategy from the EU27.

This, of course, is how the process was designed. Article 50 of the union’s treaty was written to discourage nations from leaving. As soon as Theresa May set the article’s two-year clock ticking in March, she conceded the advantage to those sitting on the other side of the table. The PM was warned of the danger by her advisers. But that was before she had lost an election and Britain had to confront the hard reality that it cannot have its cake and eat it.

Paul Krugman has said there is “zero chance” Brexit will boost trade and has slapped down suggestions that leaving the European Union will make Britons better off. He rejected the assertions of Brexiteers that leaving the single market and customs union will ultimately help the UK export more to the rest of the world.

“I don’t think there’s any plausible case that Brexit is a good thing for the British economy as a whole”, Krugman said. The overwhelming majority of trade economists are in agreement that leaving the EU is likely to harm the economy.

The theory runs that once out of the EU's clutches, Britain can make its fortune by dealing directly with places like the US, China, India etc. But Trump's USA has just poured cold water on our ideas, with a "straw in the wind" action:

America's Department of Commerce announced yesterday it had made a preliminary finding that the Canadian firm Bombardier had received unfair state subsidies and sold its C Series jet below costs. It has now imposed an interim tariff of 219.63 per cent on the company's new commercial jets to the US. Bombardier, which is one of Northern Ireland's largest employers, has branded the ruling "absurd".

Theresa May is under pressure to publish secret legal advice that is believed to state that Parliament could still stop Brexit before the end of March 2019 if MPs judge that a change of mind is in the national interest. The move comes as concern grows that exit talks with Brussels are heading for disaster. The calls for the PM to reveal advice from the country’s top legal experts follow government statements declaring that Brexit is now unstoppable, and that MPs will have to choose between whatever deal is on offer next year – even if it is a bad one – or no deal at all.

Nick Clegg has said: “The claim that Article 50 is irreversible was always a myth put about by Brexiters who want to stop the British people from changing their minds. Theresa May’s threat that MPs will have to vote for whatever deal she presents to them next autumn, otherwise the UK will crash out of the EU without a deal, is also patent nonsense. Article 50 was never the one-way conveyor belt to Brexit as claimed by the government. It can be stopped at any point.” He said that MPs should ask themselves one question when they come to vote in a year’s time: “Does the deal measure up to the promises made by Brexiters to their constituents before the referendum? If not, MPs should reject the deal, urge the government and the EU to stop the clock, and give the country the opportunity to think again.”

"The EU risks triggering another financial meltdown if it punishes the City to make a 'political point' about Brexit", the chief executive of the London Stock Exchange warned today. Xavier Rolet said any attempt to seize back euro trading would lead to unacceptable 'systemic financial risk'.

I think that if the reality of Brexit were explained in all its aspects - simply and clearly - many people would change their minds. You must know that many people really have no idea of all the implications, they simply vote on their 'gut' feeling. Oh, and their age. Try and tell old people that the 'good old days' of the 1960's was actually the country sliding into economic ruin - until we joined the CM and changed our strategy. They don't want to understand or know the truth. They want to be 'free' in a world where Nothing is free. We are all subject to rules and regulations. We are not free to travel widely - except that at countries permission. We can't fly over another country without permission. We are bound by International Agreements and Conventions as well as our own laws.

Donne had it right 'No man is an island'. Neither is any country.

Britain never has been Great - except in the terms of military power. It has relied on conquest, rape and pillage of other nations natural resources, slavery and ... oo-er.